Stents may be implanted in a variety of body lumens or vessels such as within the vascular system, urinary tracts, gastrointestinal tracts, fallopian tubes, coronary vessels, secondary vessels, airways, structural heart (valve frame), etc. They may be self-expanding, expanded by an internal radial force, such as when mounted on a balloon, or a combination of self-expanding and balloon expandable (hybrid expandable). Some stents are partially or fully covered. Migration of the stent from its initial site of implantation can be undesirable.
The art referred to and/or described above is not intended to constitute an admission that any patent, publication or other information referred to herein is “prior art” with respect to this invention. In addition, this section should not be construed to mean that a search has been made or that no other pertinent information as defined in 37 C.F.R. §1.56(a) exists.
All US patents and applications and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Without limiting the scope of the invention a brief summary of some of the claimed embodiments of the invention is set forth below. Additional details of the summarized embodiments of the invention and/or additional embodiments of the invention may be found in the Detailed Description of the Invention below.